Protecting Your Phone Number While Selling Online

How to protect yourself and your phone number from being abused, when selling online.

A frequent question and concern on #Facebook groups is the safety concern that happens when #eBay gives out your phone number to a person you sold something to.

It's way to easy for a customer to click a link on eBay and be given your phone number.

If you are an individual selling on eBay or anywhere online, or a sole proprietor, then you probably do not have the luxury of having a business phone, receptionist or customer service representative working for you.

This was originally written in 2015 when there were few options available.

Here in 2023, we have lots of options available for obtaining virtual phone numbers, cell phone used just for basic calls and nothing else are super cheap, Magix Jax is still around, Google has DUO and Voice.   Lots of others.

My go to and favorite is still Google Voice.  The only problem with Google Voice in 2023 is that most of the phone numbers except for the original early ones people are still holding onto, have been hijacked by China and other spammers. 

That really isn't a problem if you are mainly using it as a backup phone number for your stores.  You just have to remember to make a call or send a text message on it once a month, or whenever they remind you to.